Review: The Revenge Of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate

The Revenge of Geography is what George Friedmen's "The Next _____ Years" books were not. It is a geopolitical tour de force, a textbook introduction to the history of realpolitik and realism without focusing too much on the Greeks or the Machiavelli. Kaplan begins discussing the history of geopolitics, its rise from Bismark, Mahan, and Mackinder, to its fall and defense after World War 2. He is attempting to save it from the grips of war hawks and Nazis, and I believe that Kaplan does a good job at it.

In the next part of the book, Kaplan uses the theories he discusses to go on a tour around the world. The tour takes us from Central Europe in a great circle around the circumference of Eurasia, back to Turkey. He does not discuss Europe and but barely touches on South America. The novel ends with a discussion of the United States and its relationship with Mexico, and different realist interpretations of what will happen with the massive Mexican immigration population and whether or not it will be Americanized. Throughout this tour, Kaplan does a careful comparison of how geography may determine different things: hilly and harsh "Mediterranean" weather meant that South Europe was the land of highly landed elites, while Northern Europe had less formal relationships, and therefore more democracy, because their land was more productive. Russia exists in a constant state of fear. China deals with an eternal, internal conflict between its periphery and its core. India never developed its own centralized civilization because it was simply too productive and its regional powers balanced each other until they were forced together by an outside force.

Each time Kaplan uses one of these theories to explain the political, cultural and economic differences between nations, he is quick to point out contradictions. He does not want to seem like a geographic determinist, but instead a geographic possibilist (sp?). Sometimes these contrary points seem almost like pleading, "Take this set of theories seriously! please!"

All in all, the book is good and should convince the more liberal, the marxists or the libertarians among us to give more consideration to nature, geography and circumstance in the future.